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Loss of Flight MH370 Shows Technology's Limits

3/12/2014 9:31AM

In the annals of modern aviation, there are few precedents for a jetliner that simply vanishes. Dan Michaels examines one relatively recent example--a 727 that disappeared over Angola in 2003--and discusses the longer history of missing planes. Photo: Getty.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... the ... morning everyone welcome new sub I'm Simon Constable ... The Wall the awaits any word on the whereabouts of Malaysian Airlines flight am age three seventy ... and the stream of information took a bizarre time in the last twenty four hours ... is the latest half the widespread fault of the jet one-on-one Tobago off calls ... Malaysia's Apple's chief denied he ever told that suppress meanwhile we emphasize that by the Jets would medical to intercept the aircraft ... as it did not appear to be hall style ... as families of the missing passengers who resigned away information all my loved ones investing in this episode will be a long drawn animation Small mistress running location of flight three seventy build ... massive jet airplanes disappeared more often in fiction than real life ... nonetheless it does happen and WSJ's Dan Michaels joins us now from friends but with the D tells ... them thank you for ... being map ... obviously yet we prefer to of of of of of him in the triangle ... but it's a Sobel love of the wealth of May tells about the story are out ... sch yes the issue that people who may see a ... global surveillance in use GPS may think that every part of the world is covered electronically with eyes in the years that it's not ... the of the parts the world over oceans over ... had ten goal opens her ... as they are just blank spots when it comes to our radar and satellite and other kinds of observation ... tell us about some eleven years ago at Chinese still that some twenty seven ... took off from the wind Angola and he went missing ... yet this was less than two years after nine eleven to cause a lot of concern at the time ... those of you ... the plane is being used in Surrey fuel around in Africa for mind's ... eye one day a mechanic at got in it ... taxied down the the ... the runway without permission without turning on any of the lights are the ... the transponder and just took off and the plane ... was never seen again ... I in for a few weeks there's a lot of concern that it might show up somewhere that nobody wanted ... Aunt also found some the that the planet crashed in the ... Andes ... and the movie was made about a cool ally that that's a very interesting one ... Yeh that's ... another planned it did disappeared ... although unlike most the other things that disappear designed many of the passengers survived or about forty five people on it ... thirteen of them died or disappeared in the crash ... but the rest survived and initially they waited for help but ... didn't comment so three of them set off to find hope only ... to me and made it eighty one and turned back ... at the two reached a peak a couple of farmers and donkeys too ... went in and ... got help and ended ... up two months after the crash ... helicopters are found and rescued ... all the passengers ... none of them want one of the the the most famous stories as a media pass on a plane has never been found ... in all the years since he tried to do that to second navigation of the globe ... she ... entered it was famous she was the first woman to cross the Atlantic and when she said distance records in the nineteen thirties she was a celebrity ... but she was she was referred to as the late evening TV projected book to get like limber ... up ... she probably would have faded ... from history had she not disappeared ... um she disappeared in nineteen thirty seven year believers New Guinea ... I've tried to fly around the world ... there was a plain that it may be counter wreckage that might be suspected of being hers ... um by ... she is one of those cases where the disappearance is at least as fascinating as of what will work out there in the first class ... as time goes on to this history suggests that the longer we wait ... the less likely this is to be found on the stand trying to find something if it if it ... if it's on the ocean floor ... becomes very difficult ... it is difficult ... the most recent instance was the Air France crash and two thousandnine ... where he added Airbus flying from Rio to Paris disappeared ... but in that case there was some electronic data transmitted from the plane ... and they ... gave the searchers sense of where to look ... within thirty six hours they found detail the plane which is white with blue and red stripes on a floating on the surface and so they had a rough idea where to look ... that was on the surface it and took ... almost two years in three separate searches ... of the bottom of the ocean there ... are a feature that searches using progress of the more sophisticated and complicated ... equipment I between me and again almost two years after the crash he did find the wreckage they've managed to locate ... the recorders and learned alot about what happened ... moments of the time this time thank you Brian much Dan Michaels told The Wall Street John all ...